Saturday, December 22, 2012

To kick off this "Pre-Christmas Edition" blog entry, I would like to thank students, parents, and staff for the kind presents. I count myself blessed to be a member of a supportive and caring community at Ruskin.

Also, I want to say a big "THANK YOU" to Ms. Lee-Tran for catering the Winter Party! It was quite a spread! We all were stuffed! Additional "Thanks" go out to Ms. Hashimoto, Ms. Kim, Ms. Ly and Ms. Robinson.

I actually recommend the 1401 and 1405 Glacier Drive houses (they're next-door to each other). The owners have a short wave FM radio transmitter (104.1 FM) from which they have coordinated their lights and on-lookers can listen to the music from their cars. Parking in front of the two houses is blocked off, but there's some really good parking spots in front of the house, if you get there early. They serve free popcorn from their popcorn popper and accept donations for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Here's some information from their website:

"This year we have over 75,000 lights synchronized to several songs with 240 separate channels. The songs are broadcast on a short range FM transmitter set to 104.1 FM. We have converted to 100% LED this year, and there numerous new features such as additional "leaping" arches, strobes, and tree displays. Overall, there has been a large increase in lights that go higher, wider, and brighter than the year before. We are also sponsoring the Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation, and more details can be found on our website at http://www.glacierlights.com/

Do you own a tablet? Will you be owning one soon? Are you planning on getting some eBooks for a trip? If you answered, "YES" to any of these questions, then consider downloading eBooks for FREE from the Santa Clara Library! In addition, you can also download audiobooks, music and videos. For more information, here's the link: http://www.sccl.org/browse/ebooks-and-econtent/ebooks

Two Ruskin students finished in the top 50 nationwide during the most recent National contest: ElisaZ finished 15th (996 correct out of 1000 questions) and KyleM, 29th (992 of 1000). Very impressive! Keep the students practicing as there are more contests - local (San Jose) and national - scheduled for the new year!

As of tonight, 12/22, the top ten students (ranked by most correct responses) from Mr. Amutan's class are: Ethan, William, Ariel, Dominic, Daniel, Alan, Ashley, Hannah, Kevin and Angel! Keep up the practice, everyone!

Update - AR quizzes that were taken by the class since Thanksgiving: FOUR From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler quizzes (3 teacher-created and 1 quiz company-created) and, for most students, THREE reading textbook quizzes (The Stranger, Cendrillon,and Heat Wave).

The scores for the three teacher-created questions were not high averages, and the primary reason was the level of difficulty of the questions was high. Generally, most students scored passing grades on the quiz company-created quiz.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

“He knew the technology didn’t exist at the moment, but that it would exist.”

— Susan Woodland, daughter of Joseph Woodland, who invented the bar code on the beach, by running four fingers through the sand, as he attempted to answer a grocery executive’s call for a way to track products. Woodland, a mechanical engineer who died Sunday in New Jersey at age 91, reportedly told the story this way: “I poked my four fingers into the sand and for whatever reason — I didn’t know — I pulled my hand toward me and drew four lines. I said: ‘Golly! Now I have four lines, and they could be wide lines and narrow lines instead of dots and dashes.’ ” But he actually kept going and drew a full circle, the design he favored. Woodland and fellow Philadelphia college student Bernard Silver were awarded a patent in 1952 for a bull’s-eye-shaped Classifying Apparatus and Method, according to the New York Times. They sold the patent for $15,000. In the 1970s, when Woodland was working for IBM, colleague George Laurer designed the rectangular bar code as we now know it, and it was given a boost by Alan Haberman, a supermarket executive who died last year. (SeeQuoted: on the bar code, IBM and tech history.) The first product ever sold that was scanned with a UPC symbol? A pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum for 67 cents, at a supermarket in Ohio in 1974, according to the Guardian.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

November's San Jose Sharks Reading Is Cool goal was "MOST AUTHORS READ" and a few more students submitted their reading logs.

Because he read the most authors - 25! - in November, Ethan repeats as our Sharks Reading Is Cool Reader of the Month. In all, Ethan read 5,782 pages in November! WOW!

He will receive a medal as well as a $5 Jamba Juice gift card!

Students are currently competing for the December Reader of the Month by reading the MOST BOOKS. Students are to FINISH the book they start and try to read around their GE reading level or within their ZPD. Please refer to their December STAR Reading Report for these numbers.

December Reading Logs are due the MONDAY we return to school: January 7.

Friday, December 7, 2012

First, CONGRATULATIONS to Ethan and Ariel for placing in the top 50 students in this past week's Sumdog.com math contest! The 1,000 question limit was reached by both students. Ariel answered 884 questions correctly, which was good for 45th "place", and Ethan only missed 25 questions - good enough for 5th "place" overall! WOW! Congratulations to both and let's get more kids involved!
(NOTE: The word place was used with quotation marks because the website doesn't count ties.)

Second, Ruskin ranked 3rd overall school in the contest and had 11 students place in the top 50. Congratulations to all students!

Lastly, starting today we are now enrolled in the NATIONAL contest! Let's show how good we really are! Good luck to all!